Democrats Demand Inquiry Into Charge By Medicare Officer

Published: March 14, 2004

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''No one should have withheld the actuary's estimate,'' Mr. Grassley said. ''Every cost estimate is relevant to every debate, this one included, and government analysts with relevant information should never be muzzled.''

But Mr. Grassley said the Democrats were being disingenuous.

''They embrace an administration estimate to suit the partisan cause of undermining the Medicare bill,'' he said. He said many Democrats had favored an alternative bill that ''by anybody's estimate would have cost hundreds of billions of dollars more than what we enacted.''

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, worked closely with Republicans to write the Medicare law and strongly supports it. But he said he too had ''grave concerns'' about the withholding of data.

''It was unacceptable that Congress was denied access to this valuable information during the Medicare negotiations,'' Mr. Baucus said.

Robert E. Moffit, director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said: ''There's no excuse for what the administration did. The people who were hurt the most were Congressional Republicans who put their faith in estimates that turned out to be wrong.''

Mr. Moffit said the higher cost estimates could have affected the outcome of the debate or the contents of the legislation. ''A number of House Republicans voted for the bill under duress,'' he said. ''They did not want to impose huge unfunded liabilities on the American taxpayer.''

The Medicare bill finally squeaked through the House on Nov. 22. The roll call lasted nearly three hours as Republicans tried to persuade opponents of the bill to switch their votes. The House ethics committee is looking into accusations of attempted bribery surrounding the vote of one lawmaker, Nick Smith, Republican of Michigan.

Mr. Bush promised drug benefits to the elderly in his 2000 campaign and continually pushed Congress to pass the Medicare bill, which relies heavily on private insurance companies to deliver such benefits.

In November 2003, before final votes on the bill, administration officials repeatedly said, without qualification, that the legislation would cost no more than $400 billion over 10 years. In making those statements, administration officials relied on estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, without citing much higher cost estimates by the Medicare actuary.

Mr. Bush signed the measure on Dec. 8. Then, on Jan. 29, the White House announced that the new law would cost $534 billion, or one-third more than the price tag used when Congress passed the legislation.

The administration assumed that more people would sign up for drug benefits, get low-income subsidies and enroll in private health plans.

At a press briefing on Jan. 30, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said Mr. Bush had been informed of the final higher cost estimate ''just in the last two weeks.''

But administration officials said they had known for months that, according to their own actuaries, the costs could far exceed $400 billion.